That Awful Boy
by ilurandir
Summary: The summer before their fifth year in which Severus is bored, Petunia decides she wants to cut her hair, and teacups are proven to be rather dangerous.


He didn't like Thursdays, during the summer. Thursdays were his father's day off work... when he did work.

Thursdays, Severus tried to stay out of his two-up two-down on Spinner's End and would leave early in the morning and wander down the hill towards the parts of Cokeworth that had greener grass and where the houses had more than four rooms apiece. The mill towered behind him, and he never once looked back.

Spinner's End wasn't all bad though. He liked the cobbled streets. While they reminded the rest of the inhabitants that the city had conveniently forgotten about them when it came time to pay to pave their roads, they reminded Severus of Diagon Alley, and Hogsmeade, and there was nothing wrong with _that_.

He had to follow the river for a ways. It stank in the summer - a strange, muddy river smell - different from the thawing smell of spring, and different, too, from the smell of the outdoor lavs that they had back home. It was something else entirely. Severus sometimes like to think that perhaps it the was the smell of despair, everyone's sorrows rotting in the water every time the mill had to lay off their workers or worse.

"Times is hard," his dad always said. Only he always said it when he was sober as a lark and in one of those quiet moods. He never said it when he was roaring and raging and shattering the glass in their house and splintering the wood of their doors.

As he walked he alternately tapped and slid his fingers over the metal rail that separated the road from the river until his fingertips came away orange with made a strangely pleasing hollow sound - steel from a mill that wasn't theirs. Steel from a mill that was doing better than they were. There were machines to make clothes and to sew sheets now, after all.

"_They don't need us, na'. they got those fuckin' machines doing the work what we do better with our own two hands." _Tobias had said, holding out those long, strong fingers, tips always ragged from the needle, thumbs and the what-should-be-soft place between that and his index calloused and hard. Tobias had large hands, so gentle when they weren't so hard.

The houses were spaced further down here, the end of the hill. The smell of the river faded and the cobbles faded into a real road - one that didn't wear down his shoes, but didn't sound near as nice under them either.

He passed the playpark where he'd first seen Lily, its swings abandoned this early in the morning, the weeds by the fence fighting hard to grow, choking on metal and tarmac and spilling out in clumps of a colour that was almost shocking against so much brown and grey.

The Evans' house was tall and white, and he still remembered the first time he'd visited (with a touch of embarassment) being wide-eyed at the fact that their toilets were indoors and just how spacious everything was, which, he'd come to realise at fourteen, wasn't all that spacious at all, but certainly much bigger than his own little house.

Back then, when they were eight, Lily and Petunia had shared a room. They shared a room up until Lily got her Hogwarts letter and then… Severus still wasn't quite sure when it happened, but some time during that first summer after they'd come back from school, Mrs Evans's sewing room was cleared out, and the storage there was moved into the cellar, and Petunia moved into the smallest bedroom upstairs - still right next door to Lily, but a whole wall away which, Lily had once said, felt like the whole world when you were used to sleeping next to someone.

Severus had just shrugged one shoulder and said that he was glad that Petunia wasn't always going to sitting on the bed, sighing impatiently at them on the days that the rain kept them indoors.

He approached it now, that tall, white house with its flowerboxes on the windows and the cheery yellow curtains. Sometimes it was so perfect it blinded him and he would stand, winded, just outside the front gate and pick the peeling paint from the wood until he heard Petunia call, from somewhere inside, "Lily, he's out there again!"

It was the same today. It had been the same for years. Severus picked at the paint on the gate and then Lily came out, letting the screen door bang shut behind her as she struggled to tug her left shoe on; he picked at a splinter in his thumb. Mr Evans had been saying he'd sand the fence since Severus knew him. Severus knew that he never would.

Lily hopped on one foot inelegantly on the front porch, clinging to the screen door handle, her long red hair hanging into her face, still in damp tendrils from the shower. She finally got the bloody thing on properly, then stood up straight, swept all that red hair out of her eyes and clattered down the steps and pushed the gate open with a breathless, "hiya," and that lovely smile. He flinched as he hit the splinter wrong and stuck the offending end into his mouth, working it out with his teeth.

"Hi," he mumbled and they set off. He spat out the splinter a moment later and Lily gave him a sidelong look that was half disapproving and half amused.

Severus hated Thursdays, during the summer because this was also the day Lily helped her aunt Moraley at the convenience shop at the edge of town. Severus worked there Wednesdays. They were both too young to work, technically ("Tell anyone that asks you're sixteen and don't forget it and _don't _tell them you get paid from the till." Moraley had said, pale under her freckles), and he got the position only because Lily had begged and said because he didn't have any pocket change otherwise. But the money he made he gave to his mum and everyone knew it. No one said anything. He ignored the fact that Moraley pitied him because he rather liked her, and she always gave his mum stuff on credit whenever she came in.

Eileen called it charity disdainfully _every time_ the two of them walked home from the shop. Every time, Severus rolled his dark eyes.

He walked with Lily most Thursday mornings, to the shop and then back alone, and then usually, he'd walk to meet her. Thursdays were long and boring save the few hours he saw Lily. Sometimes, Thursdays, Mrs Evans would ask him to supper.

"How's it at home?" Lily asked as they walked.

"S'not bad, I guess."

"Your lip's split, in the corner there."

"Yeah, 'tis."

"Wasn't there yesterday."

"Nope."

Lily watched him a moment as they walked, then heaved a deep sigh and looked straight ahead.

"Oh, Severus, didn't I just see you yesterday?" Moraley asked from behind the counter as soon as they came in. She glanced at him from where she was measuring flour and then did a double take. Her sigh was audible. Severus pressed his lips together and looked out the window, ignoring the sting in the corner.

Mugs of tea shattered loud when they hit the wall and made a mess. Severus had found out yesterday that it sounded louder when they cracked against his teeth and the blood pooled under his tongue.

Without another word, Moraley rang the purchase through, handed the bag of flour to Mrs Foss who tottered out the door smiling benignly. She was deaf anyway.

"What happened to you, then?" Moraley seemed to thunder from behind the counter. For such a slender woman she certainly seemed to take over the whole room. Her hair curled brown and wild around her face, just a little too short and she placed her hands on her hips.

"A cup of tea, actually," Severus murmured. "Who knew a cuppa could be so dangerous?"

Lily snorted. Moraley gave her a look. "Your uncle will be in in half an hour, Lily, and Severus, he won't want to see you hanging about here - work never seems to get done that way."

"Yeah," the two of them drawled in unison as Lily hopped onto a stool behind the counter and Moraley grabbed her bag from the back room. "Ungrateful, the two of you," she said, bopping Lily on the head with the side of her fist and catching up Severus's chin as she passed. He flinched and averted his eyes. "Well it looks all right. Mind you wash it with soap and water out back, go on. It better be healed nicely by next Wednesday or the whole town will think I've got hooligans running my shop."

"Yes miss," Severus said with a hint of singsong, glancing at her briefly. She let him go and made sure he was headed for the bathroom in back before she went out the door muttering to herself.

Severus sat behind the counter for about fifteen minutes. They did the crossword that Moraley had abandoned after two words and an indecipherable scribble and then he left before her uncle showed up. He was mostly indifferent to Severus, but he didn't want to risk his job for being a nuisance.

And so the long, boring Thursday had begun. Usually he hung around the Evans's back garden and read. Today was the same. He could rarely afford books of his own, and so he read Lily's. Mr and Mrs Evans were at work by this time and it was fairly quiet. Usually he was left in peace until three, which gave him enough time to walk back to the store and meet Lily when she was off at three-thirty.

There was a tree in the Evans's back garden that he liked to sit against. On one side, sheltered by it's roots, he was shielded from the house and, because of Next-door's shrubs, the rest of the world, it seemed. Sometimes he sat still so long the squirrels would almost run over his legs, each of them startled by the other.

Today though, was different. He was just getting that lazy, heavy-eyed feeling from reading too long when thunder rumbled overhead. He was just looking up at the grey clouds through the branches, wondering if it would just pass over them when the sky opened up. Cursing he scrambled to his feet. He would have to go home. Fuck. Hopefully his dad didn't remember last night.

He was just at the front gate when someone said "Hey," from behind him. He turned around, clutching the book to his chest so it didn't get too wet.

Petunia was standing in the front door, in her sock feet, her long blonde hair hanging down past her waist. "You'll get soaked if you walk all the way home."

He contemplated her for a moment. Petunia was hard to predict. Sometimes she would be perfectly nice- well… tolerable, and others she would set his teeth on edge.

In the end though, she was right and he came up onto the porch feeling very much like a drowned rat. She let him in anyway, but made him leave his shoes outside under the awning.

"I'm cutting my hair today," she informed him.

"Hm," he said, non-commitally, dripping on the mat in the front entryway.

"And I've just put the kettle on." With nothing else for it, he followed her into the kitchen.

She'd been washing dishes. The kitchen smelled of that lemon dish-soap and, now, PG tips. She set a cup in front of him.

"What happened to your face?"

He rolled his eyes, tired of that question already. When Mr and Mrs Evans were here, she would have been scolded, but they weren't. If Lily was here, she would have said "Mind your own beeswax," but she was at work, and Severus was alone with Petunia Evans and he felt, suddenly, rather uncomfortable. Staring down into his tea he shrugged. "I cast a spell wrong, and it's slowly eating me from the inside. This is the start."

Her grey eyes widened. "Really?" she squeaked.

"No." He answered.

She sat back, looking angry, and a little hurt. "I knew that," she whispered.

He met her eyes. Bold as her sister, she held his. Outside, thundered rumbled.

"You can't cut your hair," he said, suddenly, blinking.

"Why not?"

"Your mum says you're not allowed."

It was true. Last Thursday she'd brought it up and Mrs Evans had said "Those styles are for older girls, Petunia, and besides, haircuts are expensive and I only know how to trim… something like that… well it's silly, who's going to see it?"

Petunia had huffed and crossed her arms and refuse to eat any more supper.

"So?" Petunia said now. "What do I care?"

Severus shrugged his shoulders. "I don't care either."

"_You_ should be the one cutting your hair," she said. "You look stupid."

Severus thought she pronuced stupid stupidly.

"You look like a girl."

"_You_ look like a girl," he retorted. He never tried very hard with Petunia. She might be annoying, but she didn't deserve his malice.

"That's because I _am_ one, aren't I?" she said, haughtily.

"Could've fooled me," he said, mostly annoyed with her now. There was a beat, and then she stood and overturned his teacup. He leapt up before it could really burn him, but a splash soaked through the fabric of his trousers. "Hey!" he cried. At least they were already wet from the rain.

They stood there, opposite ends of the table, glaring at each other. Then she turned, wrenched open the drawer by the sink and produced the kitchen scissors. Slamming them down on the counter, she gathered all her waist-length blonde hair into a fist at the back of her neck, then took the scissors and cut.

He watched her, mouth hanging open. She cut through, pulled the handfull of hair free and threw it down to the kitchen floor. The scissors followed, _slam_, down onto the counter and her hair fell forward, just past her chin, almost even.

"There. That wasn't so hard." She said. "I should have done it years ago." Her eyes were filling with tears. He just stared at her, mouth still slightly agape.

She turned away from him and and crossed her arms. Neither of them moved until she reached up and wiped her eyes, sniffling.

He felt a horrible sinking feeling - the same he got whenever Lily started to cry. He hated it when girls did that, he never knew what to do.

"I wasn't really going to do it. I must look ridiculous," she said softly.

"Actually, it looks all right," he said, a little uncertain. _Just stop crying_, he thought.

She wiped her eyes again, then glanced back to him. "Compared to yours, of course it does."

He actually let out a laugh and suddenly she was giggling. She turned and leaned agaisnt the counter, both hands over her short hair. "If I could only cut a fringe, imagine," she said, her voice slightly muffled.

"Scandalous," he said, dryly. He felt a little shaky, wondering vaguely if this was his fault and if Mr and Mrs Evans would be cross with him for it. He hadn't cut her hair, but he'd said something… girls always flew off the handle like this. He didn't understand it.

He met her eyes, but she didn't seem upset anymore. She was pretty when she smiled, he thought, even though her hair was staticky around her face, and the freckles across her nose she tried so hard to hide - rubbing lemon juice on them everyday - were already noticable again, because of the summer sun. Her eyes lit up when she smiled. Usually she looked so snotty and disdainful.

"Do you want another cup of tea?" she asked once she'd calmed down.

"Are you going to throw it on me again?"

"I wouldn't, honestly."

He would't let her clean up the mess, sopping up tea with paper napkins himself, while she swept her hair from the floor and set the kettle to boil again.

When she set his cup down her hair fell forward and she tucked it behind one ear. He looked up at her - all angles and bony fingers, and that long thin neck - so unlike the soft smallness of Lily but he furrowed his brows. "It does look nice actually," he said. "Really."

He could see the freckles where they spread and faded onto her cheeks now - those high cheekbones and the careful set of her mouth as she did everything just so.

Her lips parted and she met his eyes and before either of them really caught up with their thoughts, she had pressed her lips to his - not a kiss really, so much of a touch of parted lips against parted lips. He smelled an odd combination of wet wool, from his trousers, and summer, from that morning. When she pulled away, her long fingers curled into a loose fist, hovering uncertainly at her throat. He pulled his cup towards him, his body coiled, choosing between tea and bolting for the door.

In the end though, the tea won out. He'd been kissed before, of course. Him and Lily on the edge of the glade in the woods near her house when she'd dared him too. His heart had beaten so hard then. It was now, too, but for different reasons.

Petunia turned and went back to the stove, pouring her own cup of tea.

He chanced one more look at her, confusion in his eyes. What he wouldn't have given for that to have been Lily.

They sat together for the rest of the afternoon, chatting once in a while, like usual, really.

Severus barely thought of it again.

But for Petunia, when it was never reciprocated, even after Lily stopped speaking to him… well… that was when she started to think of him as _'That awful boy_.'


End file.
